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Andy McCarthy reacts to a CNN directive to ban talk radio hosts from appearing as guests on its programs:

I wonder if the folks at CNN ever actually listen to the in-depth coverage complicated issues get for hours at a time on Rush’s show and Sean’s show. I wonder how Mr. Klein’s assessment of talk-radio dullards squares up with, say, Mark Levin — an authentic scholar of constitutional law and American history, a mega-bestselling author of books on those subjects, and a former chief of staff to an attorney-general of the United States. Or, say, Hugh Hewitt, a cum laude graduate of Harvard, Order of the Coif student at UMichigan Law School, veteran of two prestigious federal court clerkships, like Mark a former Reagan Justice Department official, and now a professor at Chapman Law School. I wonder if Mr. Klein has ever heard Laura Ingraham or Steve Malzberg or Dennis Praeger (and I could go on and on) mixing it up with advocates for every side of every important issue.

To disagree with them is fine — that’s what makes an interesting debate. But to ban them because you find yourself unable to refute them? That’s class-A cowardice.

There’s a reason talk-radio’s audience is growing while CNN’s is evaporating.

I wish Mr. Klein would just come out and say he’d like to keep to a bare minimum the insights of effective conservative voices. At least that would be honest.

The solid point that Mr. McCarthy doesn’t quite make is that talk radio includes an array of voices. Just as “newspaper” refers to The New York Times, USA Today and The National Enquirer, “talk radio host” encompasses hateful, ranting blowhards like Michael Savage and temperate, insightful guys like Dennis Praeger. Medium specific bans are a mistake.

What he gets wrong is that cable news networks should ban Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin (I haven’t listened to the other hosts enough to make a judgment one way or another) — not because they are talk radio hosts, but because as radio personalities they consistently prove themselves to be intellectually dishonest, intemperate partisans whose very approach to public discourse is deeply destructive of it.

Mr. McCarthy wonders if “the folks at CNN ever actually listen to the in-depth coverage complicated issues get for hours at a time on Rush’s show.” What an informed person discovers upon listening to Mr. Limbaugh is that he frequently punctuates his analysis of complicated issues by employing audio clips that are edited in a misleading fashion, makes assertions of fact that are incorrect, and ascribes bad motives to his political opponents based on the behavior of the worst among them, rather than grappling with the strongest arguments on the other side. This is because Mr. Limbaugh isn’t motivated by a desire to inform, or an impulse to cultivate robust political discourse — his desire is merely to maximize the size of his audience, as he himself has asserted in the past. I realize that Mr. McCarthy and many others on the right regard Rush Limbaugh as a valuable tool for the advancement of conservatism — a position with which I disagree — but whatever their opinion of his effectiveness, I am constantly shocked than anyone who follows politics closely can fail to acknowledge his long catalog of shameless, factually inaccurate, intellectually dishonest spin. (Mr. Hannity is less intelligent than Mr. Limbaugh, rendering his intellectual dishonesty even more transparent. One imagines the interns at The Daily Show conceiving him as a kind of insurance policy. Slow news day? It’s okay, just watch a few episodes of Sean Hannity’s show! He’ll inevitably take a position when it benefits Republicans, and months later take precisely the opposite position when it benefits Republicans. We’ll juxtapose them!)

As for Mr. Levin, I’ll restrain myself from rehashing the many examples I’ve documented of intemperate and illogical content on a radio program that debases everyone who listens to it. This isn’t to dispute that the talk show host is “an authentic scholar of constitutional law and American history, a mega-bestselling author of books on those subjects, and a former chief of staff to an attorney-general of the United States.” Mr. Levin is without question an intelligent man whose range and depth of knowledge is impressive. Rather than conduct himself in a manner befitting those qualities, however, he has betrayed them — like a television news producer who gradually shifts from good journalism to thinly veiled soft core porn after discovering how one most easily draws a large audience, Mr. Levin saw that his ratings and influence would increase if he played a shameless, bombastic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character on the radio, and as if to wring every ounce of benefit from that devil’s bargain, his knee-jerk response in most arguments is to point out that his critics have a smaller audience than he does.

Mr. McCarthy regards these talk radio hosts as insightful, “effective conservative voices,” a common enough opinion, but one for which I’ve yet to see any evidence. As far as I can tell, the popularity and influence of these people correlate with conservative powerlessness, and at times of Republican ascendancy, they neuter their anti-government rhetoric so markedly that it is difficult to pardon them for enabling the worst excesses of a GOP machine that gorged itself on pork and increased the size of government.

If CNN marginally lessens their prominence conservatives should thank them, but whatever their impact on the right’s political chances, it is right that a cable channel that aspires to journalism should choose as guests people who are engaged in some sort of intellectually honest project.

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I completely agree with you on this policy. Brilliant. I wish it were part of a more general policy of defining the purpose and focus of jounalism and the channel. I think CNN or someone should start getting as high-brow, civil, and serious as possible. There’s a vacuum there.

Of course, this policy should also extend to many writers, even high-profile columnists they have on pretty regularly who have many of the same characteristics as the radio monologists (you know who I mean, on the left and right).

I’m for it though because it would mean watchable, better journalistic television and discussion and interviews, but I think you exaggerate the lack of appeal the radiologists have and the great boon banning them would be for conservatisim.
A conservatism that you might personally like more does not necessarily equate to a more persuasive, distinct, appealing one; just one that appeals to different people, while turning many others off.
Presumably there’s a reason they keep inviting these folks on and have them host – and I’d think it’s the ratings, not the quality or civility.

I think you’re way off on this one, Conor. Isn’t this as much a matter of taste as anything? And beyond that, isn’t it kind of silly to start banning specific professions from appearing on talk-shows? Would Rush Limbaugh be allowed to come on a show if he talked about something other than politics? Where do we start drawing the line?

And this says nothing about ratings – I mean, these blowhards must be good for ratings?

I specifically say that specific professions, talk radio hosts included, shouldn’t be banned from the radio — I cite Dennis Prager as an example of a sane talk radio host — and go on to argue that 3 specific talk radio hosts should be banned, not due to their profession, but because they are intellectually dishonest entertainers who share nothing with the journalistic project.

Steve, I concede that it is very difficult to be a successful talk radio host. So what? What does the difficulty have to do with whether talk radio hosts are destructive of healthy public discourse, or whether they are helpful or harmful to the conservative cause, or whether they should be included on journalistic programs?

Hey hey – I didn’t mean to jump the gun and imply you were in favor of a general ban on all ‘personalities’ and ‘entertainers,’ like me. But 3 is a nice start.
I agree that profession shouldn’t be a factor, and would prefer they banned (or just ignored) many other half-truth, canned-partisans that are respected and reviled, whatever their profession.

But we do at least agree that there should be some standards, or policy that might improve the level of discourse and argument on these shows.
Good enough for me.
I just think it would probably be very difficult to get much better ratings than PBS or C-Span with such a content/guest policy.

McCarthy writes: “I wonder if the folks at CNN ever actually listen to the in-depth coverage complicated issues get for hours at a time on Rush’s show and Sean’s show.” This is sort of like me wondering if Kiera Knightly ever actually contends with the depth of her attraction to me.

Quite a lot of broad generalizing in this article, it seems. Makes it kind of hard to agree or disagree with anything in it.

BTW, Rush Limbaugh is my hero. Long ago I decided I can’t stand to listen to him any more — too whiny, bombastic, ignorant, partisan and shallow — but he’s my hero and I’ll defend him against any attempt to put him down. He’s annoying, but not as bad as people with NPR-sounding voices.

BTW, if you really want to say something constructive, why don’t you denounce the practice of reporters interviewing reporters, whether it be on NPR or on FOX news? (I don’t watch or listen to FOX, except that a couple of weeks ago I watched a YouTube clip and learned that there is such a thing as Glen Beck. In this regard he’s just as bad as the NPR people.)

These are FAKE interviews, people, when one reporter asks questions of another. Those aren’t real questions that require thought before answering. They’re setup lines! How are we supposed to trust anything these people say if they have to fake a monologue to make it sound like a Q&A session?

I’m sorry, but if you sent transcripts of your 15 hours of podcasts to Media Matters for vetting, they would come back and say that you “frequently punctuate his analysis of complicated issues by employing audio clips that are edited in a misleading fashion, makes assertions of fact that are incorrect, and ascribes bad motives to his political opponents based on the behavior of the worst among them, rather than grappling with the strongest arguments on the other side.”

It’s the nature of talking politics on the radio for 15 hours per week.

Your argument seems to be that the very nature of talk radio requires misleading and misinforming your audience. I disagree, because I’ve listened to some talk radio hosts who don’t seem to do that, but let’s say you’re right.

If that is the nature of talk radio, why would talk radio hosts be the kind of guests that a producer on a news network would want to book on the air?

Replying to Sailer, if these radio hosts struggle to fill fifteen hours of content without resorting to deliberate distortions and fake tantrums, why would they want to add even another ten minutes of exposure to that already demanding schedule? Wouldn’t that simply put them in greater peril of further inaccuracy and incoherence? After all, your post suggests that it’s the grueling demands imposed by extensive airtime that allow problems of cogency to creep in. It’s not, you would argue, in the nature of the hosts, themselves, to bark propaganda. They wouldn’t fall back on their scripted rants, your observations tell us, were it not for the length of their programs.

So, in fact, CNN is doing them an enormous favor, denying them further opportunity to damage their reputations as honest, clear-sighted pundits.

What a ridiculous post, one that I really wouldn’t expect from CF. We should ban these radio talk show hosts from a cable internet channel because they make ‘disingenuous’ arguments? Are you serious?

Have you ever watched these channels?

Every personality who appears on msnbc/cnn/fox after 8 has a show where they essentially explicitly advance disingenuous and partisan argument. Most of the news shows examine current events through such frames that they can easily be characterized as disingenuous.

This doesn’t even touch upon the fact that under your criteria nobody would be able to talk on cable tv. I’m sure a significant number of people consider Manzi or Klein’s scribbling disingenuous propaganda (and certainly some of your posts the same way). Politicans’ entire purpose is to advance ‘disingenuous’ propaganda that supports their policy positions.

I get it—-you don’t like those dumb yokels populating the bottom 50% of the party you probably lean towards and get annoyed when the objective Jon Stewart gets to run another segment on them. Why can’t they just be enlightened like you? This post is an underhanded and as absurd an attempt to justify the ‘cleansing’ of a party as the ridiculous statements Limbaugh, etc have about moderates/etc.

And by the way, there’s direct evidence from just this past election cycle that this hair brained post is at least somewhat wrong about none of these types of radio personalities being able to resonate with a larger political constituency — his name is Al Franken and even before his radio stint he was publishing books etc that were hyper partisan and ‘disingenuous’.

To whathih39, you collapse various televised political opinions as though they were essentially alike. “Every personality” presents “disingenuous and partisan argument.” (When this happens on “fox after 8,” I assume you mean 8am.)

But that’s clearly misleading. Everyone knows that for a perspective from the Left, E.J. Dionne gives you something fundamentally different than James Carville. Dionne typically defends a liberal agenda, while Carville delivers what he thinks is in the best interest of the Democratic party. Seriously, there is a real difference there. The same goes for George Will and William Kristol. The former promotes his view of conservatism, the latter promotes the power interests of the Republican party. The quality and character of information is quite different.

Your larger point, however, that some outlets— particularly FOX and MSNBC— present current events through a distorted frame is well taken. Olberman and O’Reilly, alike, are theater. But so what? And so what, if CNN’s Klein openly drops certain personalities from the guest list? Surely, every station decides to omit certain commentary, whether or not it publicly acknowledges it.

Anyway, this situation presents the fabled “win-win” for all parties involved. Klein declares Limbaugh off limits, thus openly siding against the kind of commentary that I’m sure a majority of CNN’s viewers spurn, anyway. Conversely, Limbaugh now has new evidence of the established media’s will to censor him, and nothing revs him and his dittoheads more. Should he find a lag in that vast three-hour Odyssey he navigates every afternoon, bring up Klein, would-be Pravda chief! Ah, that’s it, that gets the juices flowing.

I gotta admit, I’ve never heard anyone essentially grant that Rush, Sean, Levin and others do, in fact, lie, distort and otherwise poison the political discourse…but then argue that it’s not their fault, they’re being forced to do so by the demands of their profession.

McCarthy’s implies that talk-radio’s growth is attributable to its hosts’ greater willingness to engage “complicated issues” with “in-depth coverage.”

I have to assume this is satire.

The audience for talk radio has grown recently in response to Obama’s presidency and a democratic majority in congress. Any other reason is marginal, at best.

Out-of-power ideologies tend to rally around their best comic voices.

This is where the Left owns a clear advantage over the Right. When conservatism was frustrated in the Clinton era, it spawned the popularity of Limbaugh and his acolytes. Not long after, when liberalism found itself in the wilderness, it produced Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Enough said.

You write: “Have you ever watched these channels? Every personality who appears on msnbc/cnn/fox after 8 has a show where they essentially explicitly advance disingenuous and partisan argument. Most of the news shows examine current events through such frames that they can easily be characterized as disingenuous.”

Well, yeah, and what I advocate is a step in the right direction away from the kind of awful programming they have, though certainly not the only step that is needed.

You also write: “under your criteria nobody would be able to talk on cable tv. I’m sure a significant number of people consider Manzi or Klein’s scribbling disingenuous propaganda (and certainly some of your posts the same way).”

Wrong. My criteria isn’t that commentators should be banned if they are considered by many to engage in disingenuous propaganda — it is that they should be banned if they actually do engage in it.

What you are advocating is unilateral disarmament for conservatives. Without Rush or Glenn Beck, or many of the others you mention, there would be no conservative voices. There is no one to take their place. And until another Reagan comes along—one who is able to articulate conservatism, while going right over the heads of the media, we are stuck with them, and with you.

What really bugs me is that it appears that you think these guys are the only ones who are guilty of the kinds of behavior that you deplore. I don’t know that you think that, but judging by your passion for writing about this topic—more than any other—it appears that way. That’s truly incredible.

“because they are intellectually dishonest entertainers who share nothing with the journalistic project.”

This is a matter of opinion and taste. Intellectual dishonesty is not something you can scientifically pin down. One man’s intellectually dishonest pundit is another man’s political mentor. I generally don’t like these pundits, Conor, but the notion of banning them from cable news shows because you think they’re dishonest is reprehensible to me.

Without Rush or Glenn Beck, or many of the others you mention, there would be no conservative voices.

At best they are manichean populists, at worst they are venal demagogues. Do you really believe these men exemplify the extent of conservative thought. Do they really embody the best mode for conservative communication strategies and media content? Are they really your best bet for attracting the next generation of voters?

They sell the passion for conservatism, not conservatism. They’re what happens when the trailer becomes more popular than the movie.

When Palin suggests that Obama’s health care proposals include death panels, should we hesitate to call this dishonest?

When Limbaugh starts comparing Obama’s policies to Hitler’s, is this, in fact, “mentoring?” Shouldn’t we call it what it really is? Desperate flailing and agitation without any pretense of honesty?

I know, I know, plenty of paranoia and nastiness issued from certain quarters of the Left during Bush II’s presidency, but I don’t recall these fringe voices getting an open mic on CNN.

As far as I know, CNN doesn’t invite Kathy Griffin’s commentary on politics, but her voice still finds a place on another popular network. Likewise, with or without CNN, there’s no danger Sean Hannity will be banned from cable. In fact, the last I checked, he has his very own program on a prominent comedy channel.

“Without Rush or Glenn Beck, or many of the others you mention, there would be no conservative voices.”

1. While Rush is arguably conservative (I’d call him a socially liberal feudalist), Beck is either a deliberate fool or a flat-out nutter.

2. Have you ever heard of this guy called Conor Friedersdorf? I think he’d do a fine job representative conservatism in the public discourse. Granted, he might not be quite as crudely entertaining as Rush or Beck, but I think a little less bread and circuses is what we need now.

Conor’s attack is a classic case of trying to fight upwards and to provoke those far beyond you in audience and influence to deign to notice you and thus elevate you to a higher level of importance in the pecking order.

Thus he goes at Levin (who should have simply wiped him off his shoe like so much dog poop – oh, wait, he sort of did that, didn’t he?), and Rush and Sean et al.

That Steve Sailer deigned to respond means that Steve occasionally has too much time on his hands.

I sympathize with Conor, though. It sucks to be the little nobody who keeps trying to be the fly in other people’s ointment, the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.

With perseverance it just might work and then gadflies get to tell Conor what a hopelessly inane commentator he is.

They sell the passion for conservatism, not conservatism. They’re what happens when the trailer becomes more popular than the movie.

I’m not sure you’re right, though I get your point.

But, guess what. Back when I was a kid, I listened to Herman’s Hermits. Man, they had some stupid songs. I loved ‘em. Fortunately, my love for them became a love for Bach, Gershwin, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, The Who, Billie Holliday…

I’m not a journalist, but it would seem to me that from the point of view of journalism, certain commentators are worthless on their face. There is no reason to ask Rush anything that doesn’t relate to Rush’s occupation. If I want to know things about talk radio, then I’d have Rush on. Otherwise, if i want political commentary, i’d rather have an actual/former strategist on. Or a former office holder. Or an activist that runs an actual political organization. Anything else and you’re breaking the line between journalism and entertainment. Not that those are two sides that should never mingle, but you have a responsibility as a journalist. And it’s hard for me to see people like Beck or Hannity as anything other than entertainment.

Just linked to this site for the first time from Matt Yglesias’s End Game. I must say I have been looking for something which I would describe as blogging from an intellectually conservative point of view with well thought out positions presented rationally and with attention to particulars and argued in a way that promoted discussion. So far I have read a number of very interesting and thoughtful posts. And this post, particularly, is well thought out and incisive in it’s analysis. Needless to say I concur. Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Levin, OReilly, Hannity, et al present conservatives as nothing much more than absurdly hysterical paranoiacs using fear mongering to appeal to the basest instincts of their audiences.

I think it’s a bit extreme to suggest the appropriate course of action is banning these people from the airwaves. Why don’t we, as persons of clearly superior intellect, discernment, and temperament, employ our talents in discriminating between the many things these pundits say? In other words, why don’t we take what’s good and throw away what’s bad, as we should do with everyone’s ideas? Surely you don’t think everything Rush Limbaugh utters is false and misleading – that would be rather ideological, no?

It should not go forgotten that NBC invited (and he accepted) Rush Limbaugh himself to appear on its anchor desk for election night in 2002. There he was right up there with Brokaw and Russert, Howard Fineman and everybody else.

Intellectual dishonesty aside. RadioTalkers are honest in the sense that they are transparent in their ambition for success and possibly fame/notoriety. They are partisans who are interested in advancing their cause but most importantly their own relevance and fattening their wallets.

Whether or not thats a good thing is another matter. As I’ve tried to portray in my blog, a lot of punditry can be boiled down to theater not unlike Pro-wrestling. Some pundits acknowledge it as so in the way purposely court outrage and needle their ideological opponents. On the other some pundits believe their own hype.

Liberal talker Sam Seder broached this topic in an interview with PunditFight